Call for Papers

UK Language Variation and Change (UKLVC) provides a regular forum in Britain for international research in variation and change at all levels of linguistic structure. From 12th to 14th September 2011, Edge Hill University will be hosting the eighth in this bi-annual symposia. The eighth conference in this series aims to identify current and emerging interdisciplinary trends within variationist sociolinguistics. Abstracts are invited for papers and posters concerning all aspects of language variation and change, including those which report on research concerning communities outside of the British Isles.

Abstracts should be no longer than 300 words (excluding references) and should be submitted via the Linguist List EasyAbs portal by Monday 7th March 2011. Oral presentations at UKLVC8 will be in the form of 20 minute papers with 5 minutes for questions, and posters will be presented during dedicated sessions where delegates will be able to talk to the authors informally. Posters should be of A1 size (1.2m x 0.9m) with either landscape or portrait orientation. You will be notified within six weeks of the submission deadline whether or not your abstract has been accepted. It is our intention for there to be no parallel sessions for oral presentations. We would therefore encourage the submission of abstracts for poster presentations, particularly as posters will be displayed in a prominent position for the duration of the conference.

Please contact the conference organisers at uklvc8@edgehill.ac.uk. Details about registration and on-site accommodation for the duration of the conference will be posted in due course.

Registration

Residential Fees

Early registration (before 27th June 2011)

Standard fee: £280 Student fee: £160

Late registration (28th June – 1st September 2011)

Standard fee: £300Student fee: £180

Registration on the day

Standard fee: £320Student fee: £200

These fees include 3 nights B&B and en suite accommodation on campus (Sunday 11th, Monday 12th & Tuesday 13th), lunch and refreshments each day, the wine reception on Monday 12th September and the Conference Dinner on Tuesday 13th September.

Non-Residential Fees

Early registration (before 27th June 2011)

Standard fee: £120Student fee: £90

Late registration (28th June – 1st September 2011)

Standard fee: £140Student fee: £110

Registration on the day

Standard fee: £160Student fee: £130

These fees include lunch and refreshments each day and the wine reception on Monday 12th September.

Additional costs for non-residential delegates

The Conference Dinner, drinks package, 3 course meal, tea & coffee £50On-campus accommodation is available for the nights of Sunday 11th, Monday 12th & Tuesday 13th September at the following rates:

Jenny, has been professor of Linguistics at Queen Mary, University of London since 1996 and previously held posts at the University of Fribourg and the University of Neuchâtel in Switzerland, Birkbeck, University of London and Reading University. She has worked on different aspects of language variation and change for many years and has particular interests in grammatical and discourse variation in adolescent speech. Her books include Social Dialectology (Benjamins 2003, edited with David Britain), English around the World: Sociolinguistic Perspectives (CUP, 1991) and Variation in an English Dialect (CUP, 1982). She has recently completed two large-scale ESRC-funded projects on language change in multicultural London, with Paul Kerswill, Sue Fox and Eivind Torgersen. She is currently researching the educational implications of this research, with Sue Fox and Paul Kerswill. She has just begun a new ESRC/ANR project on language contact and language change in multilingual areas of Paris, with Françoise Gadet and Penelope Gardner-Chloros. In her talk she will consider the extent to which insights from the field of contact linguistics can further our understanding of language variation and change in multilingual urban settings.

Jane began her career in linguistics in Comparative Philology, concentrating in her PhD on the phonetic plausibility of reconstructed sound change. She began working on contemporary spoken language, first at Birmingham, looking at phonological awareness and literacy acquisition in bilingual Panjabi/English bilinguals, and then after her appointment at Glasgow in 1997, at aspects of variation and change in Scottish English, and particularly Glaswegian. She has continued her interest in minority ethnic languages by working on the regional ethnic accent, Glasgow Asian (with Farhana Alam and Claire Timmins). Her sociophonetic work on accent change in Glaswegian has lead to subsequent research in two directions. The first, concentrating on trying to uncover the nature and mechanisms for derhoticisation in Scottish English, uses articulatory investigation with ultrasound tongue imaging (with Jim Scobbie and Eleanor Lawson); the second project, using articulatory data to consider the speaker-hearer chain, starts this autumn. The other was motivated by the discovery of the rapid spread of some sound changes more typically associated with the South of England, by less socially and geographically mobile Glaswegian adolescents. This constitutes the research area for the talk at this conference, namely, how experiencing speech without the possibility for interaction, for example, by watching television, might relate to language variation and change.

Chris gained his BA (Hons) in English Language and Linguistics and PhD (entitled Northern English Dialects: A perceptual approach) from the University of Sheffield. He has subsequently held an ESRC postdoctoral research fellowship at the University of Edinburgh, before joining Sheffield Hallam as a lecturer in English language in 2009.

Postgraduate Bursaries

Three bursaries are available to postgraduate students who wish to attend UKLVC8. To be eligible for a bursary, applicants must meet all of the following conditions:

The applicant must be a full-time postgraduate student (UK or overseas).

The applicant must have had an abstract accepted for either an oral or a poster presentation at UKLVC8.

The applicant must not be funded for their postgraduate studies (for example by the ESRC or AHRB in the UK).

Bursaries are competitive and are available to partially/fully cover the following costs:

conference fees

3 nights ensuite and B&B accommodation on campus

lunch and refreshments each day

the wine reception on Monday 12th September

Please note that financial support for travel to UKLVC6 is not available.

Applications must be received on or before: 15th June 2011. Please, note that applications that arrive after this date will not be considered. You will be informed via e-mail of the outcome of your application by 1st July 2011. Should your application be successful, you will be required to have registered by 15th July 2011.